Panmure Liberum: compliant AI for an investment bank.
Fifty One Degrees took Panmure Liberum, a leading independent UK investment bank and the largest adviser to UK-quoted companies, from zero to a governed, firm-wide AI capability in one 90-day phase: Claude Enterprise live under FCA-aware policies, information barriers respected from day one, and an AI Pioneer network covering roughly one in five of the firm.
How does a regulated bank adopt AI without breaching its walls?
Panmure Liberum runs a strict information barrier between its private-side investment banking business and its public-side research, sales and trading. The FCA treats barrier breaches severely, so a general-purpose AI assistant with firm-wide access was never an option. At the same time, the bank's leadership saw AI adoption as urgent for competitiveness across research, banking and operations. The brief: deploy real AI capability across the whole firm, with compliance engineered in from the first day, not retrofitted.
A governed AI capability, live across the firm
Discovery across the whole bank
Sixteen in-person discovery sessions across nine business functions, from research and trading to compliance and HR, engaging 56 colleagues directly and cataloguing 50 use cases, each scoped and complexity-scored to build the roadmap.
Claude Enterprise, compliant by design
A governed Claude Enterprise tenant configured live with the bank's sponsor and IT team: single sign-on, automated user provisioning, custom roles, spend controls and Office add-ins, deployed under FCA-aware policies with information barriers respected from day one. The bank's own IT owns the tenant.
An AI Pioneer network
Roughly one in five of the firm trained as AI Pioneers through split-level, in-person sessions: a champion network that carries adoption into every desk rather than leaving it to a memo.
27 desk-specific skills
A library of 27 skills built for Panmure Liberum's own workflows, from client briefing packs to usage-habit reviews, with per-desk Claude projects so each team works from its own context.
Compliance engineered in, not bolted on
Tested against the barriers
Twenty-five test cases covering perimeter, roles, information barriers, governance and audit were run against the tenant before rollout.
Vendor selection on evidence
A structured platform comparison drove the procurement decision, and compliance surveillance was selected the same way, with AI usage to be monitored through the same controls as the bank's other communications.
The bank owns its capability
Panmure Liberum's IT is the primary owner of the AI tenant, workflows are documented to the bank's standards, and the engagement is designed to build capability, not dependency.
In-person, task-specific training
Training ran in person and on each desk's real tasks, following the 85% Rule: Fifty One Degrees' finding that task-specific, in-person training takes daily AI usage to around 85%, against roughly 20% with no real training.
Embedded in the bank, overseen by the founders
A Fifty One Degrees AI Implementation Consultant is embedded full-time at the bank, with strategic oversight from the firm's CEO, weekly executive updates and a gated delivery methodology. The first 90-day phase ran discovery, procurement, deployment and training as one continuous programme.
Sixteen in-person sessions across nine functions, cataloguing 50 use cases from the people who would run them.
Evidence-based platform and compliance-tooling selection, reviewed with the bank's legal and IT teams.
The governed Claude Enterprise tenant configured live with the bank's IT, tested against 25 compliance cases.
AI Pioneers first, then firm-wide training tiered by team, including engineering.
The data layer now in build: a secure server connecting AI to the bank's systems, with access controls enforced at the data level.
The first phase, in numbers
The intelligence layer
With governed AI live across the firm, the roadmap moves to data: a secure connection between AI and the bank's own systems is in build, with access controls enforced at the data level, and a scoped backlog of more than 40 further use cases behind it. The ambition is an intelligence layer for the bank: AI working over the firm's research, relationships and market data, inside the same compliance perimeter as everything else.
We're doing weeks of work in hours.Panmure Liberum research team
What did Fifty One Degrees deliver for Panmure Liberum?
A compliant, firm-wide AI capability in one 90-day phase: a governed Claude Enterprise deployment under FCA-aware policies with information barriers respected from day one, an AI Pioneer network covering roughly one in five of the firm, 27 desk-specific skills, and 50 use cases scoped across nine business functions.
How can an FCA-regulated investment bank use AI safely?
By engineering compliance in from the start. At Panmure Liberum that meant a governed enterprise tenant with single sign-on, role controls and spend governance, 25 compliance test cases run before rollout, information barriers enforced between the private and public sides, and AI usage monitored through the same controls as other communications.
Who owns the AI capability?
Panmure Liberum does. The bank's IT team is the primary owner of the Claude Enterprise tenant, workflows are documented to the bank's standards, and the engagement is explicitly designed to build capability rather than dependency on Fifty One Degrees.
What is the intelligence layer?
The next phase of the roadmap: securely connecting AI to the bank's own data and systems so teams can work over research, relationships and market information inside the compliance perimeter. The data connection is in build, with a scoped backlog of more than 40 further use cases behind it.
Can Fifty One Degrees deploy AI in my regulated firm?
Yes. Fifty One Degrees specialises in AI implementation in regulated environments, with governance, information barriers and auditability designed in. Book a Discovery Call and we will map a compliant route to firm-wide AI for your business.
Want compliant AI across your firm?
Book a 30-minute Discovery Call and we'll map a governed route to firm-wide AI adoption for your regulated business.